Metro

NY Downtown Hosp ‘overwhelmed’

Call a code blue on this hospital.

The 153-year-old New York Downtown Hospital, now the only one in Manhattan below 16th Street, is overwhelmed, creating an emergency-care crisis, patients and doctors say.

The overflow stems from the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, an influx of downtown residents and a greater use of emergency rooms by the indigent and uninsured.

“We have stretchers in the hallways and put patients there. It can get extremely crowded,” said a veteran ER doctor.

The hospital’s 160 beds are usually full, so new patients are warehoused in the Emergency Department, staying up to several days until a space opens, the doctor said.

Nurses must juggle chronically ill patients as well as stabilize emergency cases, he said.

“Morale has taken a hit because the nurses are overwhelmed and overburdened.”

Blood tests and CAT scans are jammed because of the patient increase, he added.

One recent afternoon, a reporter found a chaotic scene in the department. Brusque nurses told patients in pain they could not bypass registration or triage.

All the curtained rooms with beds were full. At least 20 other patients waited on gurneys or in chairs, some moaning. Loose pills and a broken needle littered the floor.

Dr. Antonio Dajer, chief of emergency medicine, said the hospital set up a temporary “holding area” in the ER and plans to add new inpatient beds in September.

“It’s well under control,” Dajer said. He added the ER has an average “door-to-doctor” waiting time of 20 minutes, and a two-hour average stay — “one of the fastest turnaround times in the city.”

But overnight patients gave New York Downtown the lowest overall rating of any hospital citywide in a 2010 survey by Niagara Health Quality Coalition, a consumer watchdog.